China visit – nothing is as it seems

About 18 months ago, I was in China on an extended vacation with my family. I remember thinking, "I'm sure glad I'm just a tourist. I can't imagine doing business here – seems really hard everything is so different."

Monday I came back from an 8-day trip to China. This time I was there on business. You know it wasn't so hard – just different. Sometimes the difference disappoints you; sometimes you can't believe your luck. In most situations, what I expected and what I got were different – here are a few of my observations:

Situation	Expectation	What I got	How I viewed it
Flying Air China	No maintenance, wrenches in the engine, plane exploding, death	I lived – flight left on time, no scares	Positive
Driving to the hotel from the airport	One and a half hours of sheer terror	Three hours of sheer terror	Neutral – our driver was really conservative it's just that no one else is in China
Hotel appearance	Big block of communist concrete but near some hot springs because the name of the hotel in English is "Hot Springs Grand Hotel"	Big block of communist concrete – no hot springs but we had puke on the floor by the elevator	Just slightly negative
Room cleanliness	None – the web site was only in Chinese which concerned me – the pictures looked clean but it was only a 4 star joint	Filth – the sheets were washed but the carpets, walls, sofa, bed, bathroom – nothing was cleaned or updated in at least 20 years	Negative
Hotel gym	Filled with sub standard equipment but workable	Filled with a ping pong table, ashtray, 1974 Sears & Roebucks partial weight set	Neutral
Hotel restaurant	Terrible food	Edible food and a western menu (took us two days to figure they had one)	Extremely positive – after two days of eggplant a club sandwich lifted my spirits
Hotel extra services	None – I needed no extra services	Prostitutes sent to every male guest room for some late night action	Weird and mostly negative – but positive because I'll be able to tell the story for years to come; very funny
Meeting our first translator and factory inspector	Nice but not much substance	Nice plus a lot of substance – really offered some good recommendations and did a great job building a rapport with us and the factory owner	Very positive
Factory	Five year old girls chained to tables, slave labor, toxic chemicals, lots of coal, pollution, filth	Clean facility, workers wearing lab coats, professional manufacturing process, adults working the line, solid management	Unbelievably positive
Factory owner	Old Chinese man	Younger Chinese man – very nice and willing to help	Positive – he is very willing to please his customers and went out of his way to accommodate our requests
Beer	Available as a primary dietary component	Available in mass quantity for so cheap I have to talk about it. A case of 12 Tsing tao bombers for less than $5	Generally positive
Buying toothpaste when I ran out	Green leaves on the Crest label mean mint	Green leaves on the Crest label mean green tea	Nasty – but so fascinating I brought it home to give to my daughter
Buying peanut butter and jelly at the market	Impossible to find	We found it and ate it!	Miracle
Going out to our first meal with our host	Lots of Chinese food but generally stuff I can muck down – must show respect and play nice	Dog – yep dog. When asked what type – they said "Big" and fish so fishy I gagged before it even went in my mouth	Generally negative on the food experience but positive on the environment – we ate inside a giant green house –trippy. BTW dog sucks – it is chewy and tastes like dog!
Breathing the air	Pollution, sulfuric acid, burning eyes, grime, asthma, shortness of breath, fatigue	Pollution, sulfuric acid, burning eyes, grime, asthma, shortness of breath, fatigue	Just what I thought – except the last day we had blue skies in Qingdao
Getting a massage	Relaxing and cheap – good quality (may have to say I don't want funny business at the end)	2.5 hours of torture. At one point the masseuse (if you can call her that) was leaning against the wall while standing on me – one foot on my butt the other jamming her heel into my neck. The next she was laying down with her head by my feet kicking her foot up my inner thigh – a few times she missed and her foot found a new painful home	Very negative – I had bruises on my body for two days and I would wince every time I had to change body positions
Drinking tea with our host	Cup of joe – cup of tea – same thing	Elaborate ritual. Visited his friend's tea shop and sat in a private tea room. We got the good stuff. First water was poured all over the cups and tea pot to warm them up – then the water was put in the pot, then transferred to another pot, then served in mini tea cups – all the while spilling stuff over the special table designed to catch the spillage – and the tea was amazing	Very memorable and cool – would not have had this experience as a tourist.
Ability to impact the manufacturing process	Very little influence over how they run their factory – they were going to do what they planned and we had communicated enough in advance to get the quality we needed	We had a huge impact. We made design changes on the fly to improve the manufacturing and reduce breakage, we defined quality inspection checkpoints, we help setup the processes of manufacturing and packing and we established a rapport with the owner of the factory so he will pay attention to our concerns.	Thank God we made the trip. Had we trusted in our email and IM dialogs we would have received 27,000 pieces all flawed. Now I'm confident we'll see few if any flaws in our product.

Overall it is a fun learning experience. The Chinese are so eager to please and when directed properly they can produce some amazing products. This trip was well worth the time and money. Ok here are some pictures of our trip:

The filling and capping process        Inspecting the finished goods            

Comments

[Kate]

People do have different perceptions about China and Chinese in general. Chinese just want to survive so they will do whatever it takes to win your business. However, communication can be challenge if you are not familiar with the culture. Good job summarizing your trip.

[Todd Vernon]

Great chart.. What are they filling the bongs with?

[Boyd Jones]

Be very careful with toothpaste bought in China. I hope you've read about the tainted toothpaste. Best not to let your children or anyone use toothpaste manufactured in China. Need me to share some of the news items with you?

[rando]

I'm sure the bongs are being filled with green tea.

In the past year, I know two people who have founded businesses with a Chinese manufacturing component. I have a Chinese friend who wants me to join his software outsourcing business. I have a friend who returned after two years teaching in Hong Kong. I worked on a theatrical production exploring the rise of modern China. And just learned the director of that production is involved in a missionary organization that was recently run out of a Chinese town by the army.

All of the different perspectives are fascinating. Thanks Paul!

[Cameron Schaefer]

Cheap beer and ping pong...sounds like all you really need for a successful trip! There is so much written about China today it is nice to see it from more of a ground-level perspective. Excellent information, thanks!